Overseeing extracurriculars far more than just ‘helping out’

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Your editorial piece laments the lack of clarity around the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation’s (OSSTF) plans regarding extra-curricular activities. I agree that (the recent) announcement only introduced more uncertainty to the situation. However, I take strong exception to the line in which you state that “not all teachers will be helping out with the school bands, coaching hockey teams and organizing school plays.”

Teachers do not “help out” with extracurriculars. Teachers initiate them. Plan them. Organize them. Supervise them. Run them. Scrounge materials for them. Complete onerous grant application processes in order to fund them. Allow me to give you a glimpse of what happens behind the scenes.

Last year I noticed that some kids needed a break from the hustle and bustle of the day so I created a Peace & Quiet Club in the library to provide an alternative to recess. I gave up my own eating time in order to supervise and clean up after 60-plus children aged five through 14. But that’s nothing. One particular colleague of mine coached multiple athletic teams last year. She worked really hard teaching those kids sportsmanship and strategy and skills. She also took the team’s dirty uniforms home to launder after every game. Two of my colleagues teamed up to create a new glee club. They often got together on weekends to plan. They used their own money to buy karaoke tracks from iTunes because accounting doesn’t reimburse teachers for that kind of thing. A now-retired colleague used sick days to take the track and field team to meets because there was no money to pay for a supply teacher. He didn’t have to do that, and maybe he shouldn’t have done that, but he did it for the kids. These examples form just a tiny snapshot; you wouldn’t believe the lengths we go to and the loopholes we have to jump through in order to provide extra-curricular opportunities to our students.

So please, regardless of your opinion on the current political dispute, don’t refer to our many years of heartfelt dedication as merely “helping out.”